FAST ANSWER

The best stage is the one your party clears fast enough at a useful level. Use this test for Gold, EXP, gear and pet farming, with current stage examples from the data tables.

Farm the highest stage your current team clears quickly and consistently; a slower high-tier clear can yield less Gold, EXP, or chests per minute than the stage below it.

TBH Stage Farming: stop farming the wrong stage

TBH has 120 stages across 3 Acts and 4 difficulties. The game does not hand you a “best stage” button because the answer changes with hero level, clear speed, difficulty, and whether you want Gold, EXP, gear, or a pet monster.

The three-minute farm test

Use the same formation and repeat a candidate stage three times. Compare:

• clear time;
• deaths or failed retries;
• Gold per clear;
• EXP per clear;
• chest type and number collected;
• monster count if you are farming a pet.

Then calculate reward per hour, not reward per clear:

reward per hour = reward per clear × 3600 ÷ clear seconds

If the stage is over your hero’s level range, apply the game’s reward penalty. A flashy endgame stage can produce less EXP per hour than a lower stage with a clean, repeatable clear.

Reference values from the current stage database

The table below is Normal-mode base data from the community database. It is useful for comparing stage shape; difficulty and bonuses change the final result.

Stage	Level	Waves	EXP / clear	Gold / clear	What it is good for
A1-8 Cemetery	10	78	26,966	5,796	Early gear and Bat farming
A1-9 Cursed Land	11	91	59,813	10,071	Strong Act 1 active farm
A2-4 Bug Nest	16	105	151,300	14,440	Giant Fly farming and Act 2 entry
A2-5 Scorching Dunes	17	105	153,438	13,419	Giant Fly farming route
A2-9 Pharaoh’s Crypt	21	128	585,796	38,929	High Act 2 EXP/Gold before the boss
A3-6 Burning Ravine	28	153	1,763,626	91,213	Hell Golem farming route
A3-8 Citadel of Ruin	30	180	2,798,571	160,444	Late Normal EXP and Gold
A3-9 Core of the Abyss	31	198	2,969,576	160,725	Highest Normal-stage reward, slower clear

Boss stages are special checks, not automatically good farms. They have a boss reward and zero normal waves, so compare them separately from a wave stage.

Pick by goal

Gold

Use a wave stage you can clear quickly and repeatedly. In the current Torment table, A3-9 has the highest expected Gold per clear, but it only wins if your formation can handle its clear time and survival. A lower stage such as A3-6 or A2-9 may produce more Gold per hour for a less-developed account.

EXP

Stay near the hero’s effective stage level. The TBH.City calculator explicitly applies an over-level EXP penalty; it can rank a lower stage above your highest unlocked stage. Leveling a replacement hero is a different farm from pushing your main carry.

Gear and chests

Use the lowest completed stage that drops the item level or chest type you need, then optimize clear time. Do not rely on offline rewards for a gear session; current player documentation reports that offline progress is mainly Gold/EXP while active chest collection happens while the game is running.

Pets

Choose the stage by the required monster count, not the pet name. For example, the current database maps Bat to A1-7/A1-8, Giant Fly to A2-5, Fire Elemental to A2-8, Hell Golem to A3-6, and Ghost to A3-4. See the pet table for exact reported counts and bonuses.

Portal and auto-retry routine

Use the blue Portal icon to return to a completed stage. Turn on auto-retry for a farming session, but check the first few runs: if the party fails, auto-retry can hide that you are collecting no useful reward. When a run fails, move one step down, stabilize the farm, then upgrade one variable.

Sources and evidence

• Official TBH Steam listing — official Acts, difficulty and idle-RPG context.
• TBH.City Stages database — 120-stage map, current reward values and Act/difficulty structure.
• TBH.City Farm Calculator — reward-per-hour model, over-level penalty and clear-time calibration.
• TBH pet database — monster-to-pet routes and per-run counts.
• TBH tips and tricks — active versus offline reward behavior and auto-retry context.

The values above are snapshots from an independent datamined/community database. Verify the current stage tooltip before using a route for a long session.